Sunday, October 9, 2011

Spooky Halloween Wreath LOVE!

I recently ran across this wonderful idea for a Halloween wreath. When I first saw it, I immediately knew I had to try to make one for my very own. The original wreath idea came from the very talented Karen, over at "The Art of Doing Stuff". I found her tutorial to be very detailed and easy to follow. Oh yes, and the pictures, for those of us who are a little more visual (like me)...they are great. Can't say enough good things about this whole project. I LOVE how turned out. Go over and check out her tutorial if you have a moment. I highly suggest using her tutorial as a guide, but here is my (quick) footnotes on this project.

Like Karen, I made my own wreath base out of three layers of glued together Styrofoam. The wreath bases I found in craft stores, were too small and really expensive. Hello...a 4x8 sheet of 1 inch Styrofoam was about $4. I have a lot of leftover Styrofoam, which is a good thing, since I will use it on some project in the future. When I finished my Styrofoam base, it measure about 21-22 inches across. After I cut out the inner circle, the ring of my wreath was about 6 inches wide.

I couldn't find the glitter skulls she used anywhere. I ended up buying 3 small Styrofoam skulls at Michaels. I think they were $1.49 each. I poked a short piece of dowel into the back of each of their heads and then painted them black. Once dry, I painted on a thin layer of glue and sprinkled with Martha Stewart's Onyx glitter. After they were covered with glitter, I gave them a light dusting of Martha Stewart's Black Licorice glitter to accent the Onyx. The black Licorice glitter has flecks of blue and green added to black, which sparkles nicely in the light.

Karen used 6 boas, I think I ended up using 8 to cover my wreath.

When it was time to attach my skulls, I cut a few triangles of tulle/netting and stapled them together a few times to form a half clown collar; similar to the ones her skulls have. And yes, I used a normal stapler. The staples won't show, since they will be buried in feathers, so no big deal. I had two different scrap pieces of tulle on hand, one fine and one regular weave, so I used a little of each to give it more interest. I also added three short pieces of ribbon to each collar. After I attached the skulls to the wreath, I grabbed a tulle and ribbon collar and pinned it just under each skull; to look like it was attached.

My finished wreath is HUGE...about 25 inches wide. LOVE IT!!

Completed Styrofoam base.

Skulls before paint.

Paint drying.

Glitter drying.

Netting that is draped on finished wreath.

One of the Tulle fabrics (fine not pictured) & ribbon that I used.

Close up shots of glitter skull on wreath. The photo makes them look silver, but they really are black.